The federal government will withhold $2.1 billion for two Chicago infrastructure projects, the U.S. Department of Transportation has announced, citing a new rule that bars race- and sex-based contracting requirements from federal grant programs.
The agency said in an Oct. 3 statement that the Chicago Transit Authority’s (CTA’s) Red Line Extension and Red and Purple Modernization Program have been placed under administrative review “to determine whether any unconstitutional practices are occurring.”
The suspension follows similar moves in New York earlier this week, where $18 billion for the Hudson Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway projects was also put on hold, amid similar concerns around constitutionality.
White House Budget Director Russell Vought took to X to say that the reason the two projects have been put on hold is to “ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting.”
The pause stems from an interim final rule the Transportation Department issued on Sept. 30 that rewrites the agency’s longstanding Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program, which aims to assist small businesses owned and controlled by “socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.” The rule now states the department must operate its programs “in a nondiscriminatory fashion,” and it specifically “removes race- and sex-based presumptions of social and economic disadvantage that violate the U.S. Constitution.”
Under the new standard, all applying businesses must make individualized showings of disadvantage to qualify as DBEs. The rule eliminates automatic presumptions previously granted to women and members of certain racial and ethnic groups.
Hellbound and Down 